Tag: adults

When I was a teenager an older friend of mine took me into an adult video store downtown. I had lived such a sheltered life I assumed “adult” meant the store was for older people, and I felt a bit excited that I, a youth, might slip in undetected. Of course not five steps into the store I saw a poster for one of the videos, and that excitement turned into embarrassment at being somewhere so… risque.

It’s funny to me, though, that the word adult can be used in that way. I mean, I had wanted to be an adult for so long because it meant everything sophisticated, but there was nothing sophisticated about those videos. I left the shop after about half a second longer, but I had already been inundated with a dizzying array of genitalia on the posters and the covers of those videotape boxes. I vowed to never visit an “adult” place again.

Now that I am an adult I see the power of the word in action all the time, not just for those kinds of places, but for pretty much anywhere, anytime. They card me when I purchase alcoholic beverages because these are for adults. I go in to Rated R movies and no one tries to kick me out, because I’m an adult. I have children who look up to me because I’m an adult, and adults are so… smart. Right? Aren’t we? Continue reading ““Shhh. We’re Adulting.””